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Class Warrior: On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party. 1918

Class Warrior
On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party. 1918

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Notes

table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Foreword
  3. Introduction
  4. Part I: Selected Writings of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1900   On Washington State’s Primary Law
    2. 1903   On Political Action
      1. On Reformism and Electoral “Fusion”
      2. On Trade Unions
    3. 1905   On the Single Tax
      1. On a Journey to Seattle
    4. 1906   On the Arrest of US Labour Leaders and State Power
    5. 1908   On the Socialist Movement and Travels across Canada
    6. 1909   On War
      1. On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    7. 1911   On Property
      1. On the Workers’ Awakening
      2. On Economic Organization
      3. On the Capitalist State
    8. 1914   On the Causes of the First World War
    9. 1916   On Carnage
    10. 1917   On Slavery and War
      1. On War Finance
      2. On the War Effort
    11. 1918   On the Bolshevik Revolution
      1. On Capitalism Getting Rich Quick
    12. 1919   On Control of the State by the Working Class
      1. On Reconstruction
      2. On Collaboration between Labour and Capital
      3. On Wealth
      4. On Gold
      5. On Class War
      6. On the Paris Peace Conference
      7. On Capitalist Civilization
    13. 1921   On the 1921 Canadian Parliamentary Election
  5. Part II: Selected Speeches of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1895   On the Aims of Socialism
    2. 1896   On Socialism and the Economy
    3. 1899   On American Imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines
    4. 1903   On the Labour Problem
      1. On the Political Organization of Miners in Cumberland
      2. On Stirring the Emotions of His Audience
      3. On Wages, Profit, and Capital
      4. On the 1903 British Columbia Election
    5. 1905   On the 1905 Russian Revolution
      1. On Workers and Rockefeller
      2. On the Mission of the Working Class
    6. 1906   On the Paris Commune
    7. 1908   On Labour and Its Economies
      1. On the Working Class Using Clubs If Necessary
      2. On Working-Class Political Power
    8. 1912   On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    9. 1913   On the Vancouver Island Miners’ Strike
    10. 1914   On the Komagata Maru Incident
    11. 1917   On Conscription
      1. On Working-Class Opposition to Conscription
      2. On Conscription and Wiping Out Ruling-Class Laws
      3. On the 1917 Conscription Election
    12. 1918   On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party
      1. On Laws
      2. On Reconstruction
      3. On the Armistice and Postwar Moment
      4. On Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
    13. 1919   On Lenin and Trotsky
      1. On the Belfast General Strike, Unemployment, and the Postwar Challenge to Capitalism
      2. On the Bolshevik Revolution
      3. On the One Big Union
      4. On the Class Struggle
      5. On the Machine
      6. On Capitalism
      7. On the Defeat of the Winnipeg General Strike
      8. On the Machinery of Slavery
      9. On Civilization
    14. 1920   On Mechanization of Production
      1. On the Paris Commune
      2. On the Collapse of Civilization
      3. On the Bankruptcy of the Capitalist System
  6. Part III: The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery
    1. 1916   The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery: Showing How the Chattel Slaves of Pagan Times Have Been Transformed into the Capitalist Property of To-day
  7. Part IV: On the World Situation
    1. 1919   On the World Situation
  8. Appendix
  9. Kingsley’s Speeches
  10. Index

On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party 1918

Report of Kingsley’s speech at the inaugural meeting of the Federated Labor Party in Vancouver’s Labour Temple on 23 February 1918.

Working Men of British Columbia Need Only to Stand Fast to Have Control of the Government

First Meeting Held in Labor Temple under Auspices of Federated Labor Party Indicates That Workers of Province Intend to Have Large Representation in Near Future in the Provincial Legislature.

Day of Class Rule and Legislation Will Soon Be Thing of the Past, Crowded Gathering Is Told by J. H. Hawthornthwaite and E. T. Kingsley in Inspiring Addresses—New Era for Labor at Hand.

“I do not know who is going to win this war, but I know that at the finish the working classes of the world will win. They will abolish German autocracy; they will abolish it the wide world over, and the cause of it all—capital.”

In those words Mr. J. H. Hawthornthwaite concluded an hour’s stormy address before a gathering which filled the large hall of the Labor Temple, last Saturday night. The occasion was the first public meeting under the banner of the Federated Labor Party of British Columbia, and the attendance, combined with the enthusiasm that was manifested, not to mention the scores of applications that were received at the end of the meeting, all rendered the gathering one of the most successful and most notable that the cause of Labor has ever brought together. The membership of the F. L. P. is growing by leaps and bounds, a fact which was referred to by the secretary of the organization, Mr. W. R. Trotter, and the president, Mr. George J. Kelly.

That the movement has come to stay and that it is filling a gap in B. C. was indicated in every respect. “Jim” Hawthornthwaite was in fine fighting trim, and his reference in the manner in which he had blocked several private bills in the legislative assembly, was appreciated to the full. That old warrior in the cause of Labor, E. T. Kingsley, delivered a characteristic rapid-fire address. He held his hearers right up to the last word of his speech and as he drove home point after point in vigorous and forceful style he was given a hearty round of applause.

E. T. Kingsley Speaks

“There are certain reasons why the working class must engage in political action distinctly on their own behalf,” declared Mr. E. T. Kingsley, at the commencement of his speech. “For probably one hundred centuries civilization has been based on one thing, and one thing alone, and that is human slavery. The working class today is just as completely enslaved as ever it was in the days of Babylon and Assyria, Greece or Rome, and it is upon that one fundamental basis that all the great super-structure of this boasted civilization has been built. And all down through the history of that slavery there has been one instrument that has been utilized by the master class as a means of holding the slaves in subjection to the yoke of exploitation, and that one instrument has been the instrument of government. Government means nothing else but the holding of slaves in subjection to their masters. Today that instrument, that great complicated mechanism of robbers is in the hands of the ruling class of every country on this earth except Russia, where the workers have temporarily broken it.

“All through the ages your masters have asserted the right to lay down the law and to enforce their edict no matter at what cost to you, and, until you and your class rise up and make for the conquest of that instrument known as government, that you may scuttle and destroy it and turn it aside from an instrument to be used against you; until that day comes your condition will go from bad to worse and you will sink deeper into the swamp and the slough of despair.”

Mr. Kingsley took issue with Mr. Hawthornthwaite on the statement that the working class had not paid for anything. They had, he said, paid in their agony and pains for everything that was done. “And beyond that there can be no payment,” he declared amid applause.

Is Mailed Fist

That instrument known as government with its powerful machinery to law [sic] down an edict determined what the slaves shall be allowed to do. The machinery at hand was the mailed fist, the club and the gun to enforce that edict against the slaves and in the last analysis to use the club and beat the slaves into subjection or even kill them if the case demanded it. “That instrument,” said the speaker, “has been allowed to remain in the hands of the masters with no serious opposition on the part of the working classes.

“The working people constitute all the property on top of God’s footstool,” was a remark which set the house applauding. “It is by virtue of the fact that you men are here—I will not call you men, because slaves are not men—but I want to tell you that you workers are the only revenue-producing property on top of the earth.

“Just as long as we stay out of the legislative halls, just as long as we do not challenge the right of the classes to rule and rob us—and those are synonymous terms—just as long as we do not challenge them and do not seize that instrument of government and put them out—just so long will we continue to whine and snarl and grouch and baby-cry and squall, and sink lower and lower in poverty and misery.

“My friend Hawthornthwaite says I am opposed to conscription. I tell you now, I am opposed to everything the master class demands. (Applause.) If they say, ‘Thou shalt not,’ I feel like saying, ‘You’re a liar, I will.’ (Laughter.) I do not stop to analyze the proposition whether it is good or bad. I do not need to, because I know that what is good for that man is not good for the despised slave crowd that I belong to. We get patted on the back from our masters. For heaven’s sake, do not let us pat ourselves. We are a joke. We are the only joke in all history that will bear repeating. And then we swell up like toads in a thunder storm and talk about democracy and liberty (applause).

Stand He Takes

“All over this western continent the Labor movement has professed its loyalty to the government and to the masters who represent us. Not for me,” said the speaker, amid laughter and applause. “I am disloyal to that and I do not hesitate to say so and I will repudiate it whenever the moment seems opportune and I will stand up and bawl it out no matter what the consequences (applause).

“Reasons why the working class should go into politics?” he asked. “Yes, there is every reason in the world. The line of political action is the only action making for the seizure of the ruling-class interests, the capitalist and the government institutions. We must go into politics or we must be forever whipped.”

Speaking of what is termed the dignity of Labor, Mr. Kingsley said the workers were fighting for their country under that grand old trademark of a gang of robbers. “I am now speaking of the American flag,” he added amid laughter. “Is it anything else but a commercial trademark?” he asked. “That,” he continued, “is the flag that is leading these men over the water to fight for democracy.”

“We cannot keep out of politics,” he proceeded. “We must first and always remember that our political purpose and object does not conform with the purpose and object of our masters. The reason why the masters are in politics is to retain possession of the government. Ours is to get it. Their purpose is to use it against us. Our purpose is to scuttle it, to spike its guns so that we may no longer be held in subjection to robbery.

Can End Slavery

“It is up to the working classes to end this slavery. The Bolsheviki of Russia have made a noble beginning and I believe that that spirit is the hope of the civilized world, and, sooner or later, that spirit will sweep the whole earth and second-hand shops from that day on will be ramful of thrones and crowns (laughter and applause). We have got some little job on our hands but until that job is finished the condition of our class will sink lower and from worse to worse.

“Some people think that governments are for the protection of the poor little lam [sic] whose fleece is not long enough to protect it. But that it not the purpose. The purpose is to take the rest of the fleece and then to slaughter the lamb for mutton (laughter). The reason we go into politics is embodied in the fact that the wealth producers of the world are as completely enslaved as were the slaves of the south before the war or the slaves of Babylonian days. Government is the institution that holds them in subjection. And that will remain until the workers control the machinery of government and proceed to stop the robbery that is now being perpetrated upon them, by removing the shackles from their limbs.”

Speaking on the war and the condition of the working class as a result of the war, he said that the German working class were in as bad a fix as were the workers of this and other countries because of the one fact that he had alluded to. He attributed the reason why the Central Powers precipitated the war, to the fact that they were at least 200 years behind western Europe in political development. These feudal monarchies, armed to the teeth with capitalist tools and weapons, in the blind fury of self defense, aimed their first vicious blow at France in the west, although making the pretense that the real menace to peace was the Russian mobilization. The real menace was, as a matter of fact, the oncoming democracy that was developing in the west. Its propaganda constituted a deadly threat at the feudal regime of absolutism in the Central European countries. If this feudalism was to survive, democracy—even the nascent democracy of capitalism—must be demolished. Otherwise it would eventually conquer the remaining feudal survival, and, of course, this opened up even more dangerous possibilities in the way of a working class democracy—an industrial democracy for the near future. This no doubt accounts in no small degree for the fact that the first blow was struck at France, probably the most democratically advanced country on earth.

Must Assume Control

“Unless,” said Mr. Kingsley, “the workers of the world move forward politically and assume control of and seize the governmental powers in their various countries and bring order out of chaos, I tell you that this world will be condemned to a repetition of the dark ages that followed the downfall of the Roman empire, just as sure as the sun will rise on the morrow.” (applause).

“I look forward to the time,” he said in conclusion, “in fact, I consider we are right on the threshold of that day when all the members of human society, the working people and all of the real democrats of those countries and all the progressive elements will line up together for the one common purpose of bringing this crazy ruling-class civilization to its finish. Let us help it along in destroying itself and build a structure out of the ruins that is based upon freedom, upon real democracy, upon the rights of all men and women to live upon this earth upon the production and the fruits of their own toil without paying tribute to any rulers and masters.” (Applause).

—“Working Men of British Columbia Need Only to Stand Fast to Have Control of the Government,” British Columbia Federationist, 1 Mar. 1918, 2.

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